Welcome to Hyperion Records, an independent British classical label devoted to presenting high-quality recordings of music of all styles and from all periods from the twelfth century to the twenty-first.

Hyperion offers both CDs, and downloads in a number of formats. The site is also available in several languages.

Please use the dropdown buttons to set your preferred options, or use the checkbox to accept the defaults.

Don't show me this message again

In Liebeslust, S318

Introduction

In 1858 Liszt set to music a poem by his ‘dear, excellent friend’ Hoffmann von Fallersleben, whose elder son was named Franz in the composer’s honour: In Liebeslust. It was this poet who, in an ode in praise of the Altenburg (Liszt’s Weimar home), wrote ‘Es ist nicht eine Burg der Alten’ (‘It is not a refuge for the old’), to hymn the youthful hearts and forward-looking artistic sensibilities of those who congregated there. Liszt’s progressive, late-Romantic harmonies are on display here, complete with enharmonic key transformation in the penultimate section. The song is tightly unified by recurrences, transpositions, and metamorphoses of the three-note figure we hear at the start in the piano. For the proclamations ‘Ich liebe dich’ at the song’s climax, Liszt bids the singer to loudly declaim the words ‘ich lie—[be]’ (‘I love’) and then become hushed for the crucial word ‘dich’ (‘you’) in an example both of the contrasts Liszt loved and the emotional truth he sought.

Recordings

The start of another Hyperion Lieder series is always cause for celebration. In advance of his bicentenary in 2011, we turn to a composer whose songs, against the vast bulk of his compositions in larger genres, were considered insignificant for we ...» More